Moving house - any advice/suggestions please??

That's where many of my stuff used to go before retirement. I ran a women's hostel and everything was taken as they moved into their own accommodation, and any excess went to two women's refuges. Both have closed down and the hostel is moving out of area, which is why I am making new contacts. I've got cupboards, a fridge/freezer, keyboard and boxes full of kitchen stuff, garden furniture etc. I'll find a good home for it all, hopefully someone who'll come with a van and take everything. I'll contact the charity I've mentioned previously.

I'm about to move too! For me it's the 10 zillionth time
I've had the removal company do the whole thing for the last several moves, but as this move is due to financial constraints I'm doing the packing myself, and the actual removal is going to cost me £480 for a move of about 20 miles.
My main tip would be to make sure you notify all your utilities (gas/electric/water/phone/broadband etc) and council tax/TV license/credit cards/banks/electoral role, as well as your redirection of mail as far in advance as possible (but obviously not until you've actually exchanged contracts .) I find it's difficult to get redirection of mail in place in time because they require 3 weeks notice (heavens knows why) and exchange to completion is generally around 2 weeks in my experience.
Thank you Annobel for the link to Freecycle. I've just registered, and offered a counter-top freezer that I no longer need to a charity looking for one
www.ilovefreegle.org is along the same lines, and many towns have a www.gumtree.com site, where you can either sell or give away.
Another tip: When packing fragile items, I use old towels and linen I no longer want as extra packing material. Saves on paper! They are still suitable for giving away afterwards and after a wash if needed

When married first time we moved, i think it was 12 times in 13 years...
Before you move is definitely the time to de clutter. Why pay someone to move junk...
Other than that - moving can be stressful. It is a lot of work. You can choose to make it less so if you tell yourself it will all eventually be unpacked and sorted. You don't have to get it all done TODAY. Just label all boxes and unpack at a steady rate.

Just had a very nice man called Dave around to draw up an estimate for the cost of moving us. Boy can that man talk . He was very nice but we stil have a few more people to see yet before we decide on whom we will use, we have chosen local firms rather big well known companies, its our way of trying to keep local people in local jobs, the big guns have pushed far to many "little" firms out of business

Will be very interested to hear what they all have to say Annika - do keep us posted. I haven't had anyone in yet, but I'm going great guns with the organising. Our buyers have had to renegotiate their mortgage following a reduced offer from their own buyers, apparently, so I'm still keeping everything available crossed. Won't be able to sleep until contracts are exchanged. Our own vendors seem to have decluttered the debris of 20 years and are sitting on their suitcases by the front door.

How is your move going, NannaAnna?

Learnergran its horrible when buyers have to renegotiagte their finances in a chain it puts everyone on hold for a while,I remember when I was selling new homes and my purchaser was last in a chain of 8 people from 1st time buyers to 3/4th time buyers,at the last minute the 1st timers got let down on how much they could borrow and where out by about 2k on their deposit it looked like the whole chain would collapse and I was having nervious breakdown,but I came up the idea if every one in the chain contributed approx £250.00 then we could go ahead,luck would have it that every one agreed as all the sales could proceed we then had a happy couple at the beginning of the chain and a happy glamma at the top who then went on to claim her most earned commission.

The "Scottish system" that we bought our first house on , and our present one, does not allow for reduced offers - once you have put in a genuine sealed-bid offer and it has been accepted it is binding on both sides. No ditching a buyer in favour of someone with a higher offer, no reducing an offer after it has been accepted. This is from day one - if you don't have an agreement for a mortgage level, then don't bid. If you think someone else might offer more, then don't accept.

Saves a lot of heartache.

Such a good system elegran its a pity it is not done this side of the border.

Glammanana where have you been all my life? Would Mr Glamma miss you much if you nipped down and sorted out this move for us?

Yes, Elegran, the Scottish system sounds terrific. There must be some drawback surely?

Some sellers are now selling under English rules, so you need to be sure which it is before you start. All those property programmes on TV has given people ideas about putting the squeeze on and telling half-truths about vast queues of buyers waiting in the wings too.

The usual way (or it used to be when we were buying and selling) is to set a final date when several people seemed to be interested, and then look at all the bids. No obligation to take the highest or indeed any, but the highest has an advantage.

The drawback is that the buyer has to get all the surveys, mortgage etc done BEFORE putting in an offer, as there is no leeway to change your mind unless the survey reveals something awful. Since only one person can win, a lot of others have gone to trouble and expense and then don't get the house they wanted, and wish they had offered a few thousand more to secure it.

No real drawback for the seller, who knows that the buyer should have done his homework before bidding

Conveyancing is mostly done by solicitors in Scotland. Those who are on the ball know how much over the asking price is likely to be acceptable in the prevailing market (about 5-7%, used to be standard), but you could be badly advised if you get a rookie.

Recently, it has been usual for one survey to be paid for by the seller, and made available to serious buyers.

Chains were not such a problem, as people tended to sell their own house before starting to buy - then they knew how much they had to spend and what the hand-over date was.

We moved at the end of September last year - got four removal quotes, two from big national firms and two local firms (both of whom I had used for office moves when I was working). We went with one of the locals - not the cheapest (around £480). They supplied the boxes and we packed them. They were absolutely excellent and couldn't do enough for us, on one of the hottest days I can remember. I would reitterate all the tips NannaAnna said in her post. We had all kinds of problems with both ends of our chain right up to the last week and a half then it was a bit of a panic, but everything fell into place. I hope your move goes well Learner - like you, I was terrified of moving; we had been in our house for thirty years! Just go with the flow!

Thanks for that Elegran. It certainly seems a lot easier on the nerves. Everyone knows just where they stand and once the commitment is made can relax. What happens if a winning buyer defaults? It could happen through no fault of their own. Do they lose a deposit, or are they sued? (or shot?)

The up-front costs are a big question mark though, surely. Our survey is costing over £500 and the solicitor who is doing the conveyancing has offered several optional searches (many of which I would have thought would have been done automatically), each at an extra cost. All this is specific to one particular property. I am not surprised that people in Scotland have started to go for a "communal" survey; this I think is probably the thinking behind the now defunct HIP in England. A genuinely good idea to reduce cost, effort and time but which was not given sufficient thought to make the idea work. I think that was a great pity and am sure that some system, perhaps based on the existing Scottish system, could be devised.

I would happily go with the flow, artygran, if the river would just come to my door! All I want is the peace of mind of knowing that there will be no break in the chain and that the sale will go through, and I can't have that until contracts are actually exchanged so I will just have to be patient. Not my strong suit unfortunately.
These days the time between exchange of contracts and completion is pretty swift, so I'm trying to get as much information as possible clear in my mind so that when the time comes (fingers crossed) I can just push the button and go. There are so many things I want to get on with that I have to put on hold just now. Like clearing too many things out - if the house has to be put back on the market I can't have it looking too empty; people seem to have very little imagination when it comes to seeing what they themselves can do with a house. When we were looking years ago, we bought this because we could see how we could extend when the time came, and so on. Now, people expect to have it all done ready for them, bright and shiny, just as they they see it in their dreams. I blame Escape to the Country with their huge budgets!

Learnergran Oh how I would love to get into one of these Estate Agents office and have a look at the chain problems that they have,I think the top and bottom of things are that the negotiators and indeed the Estate Agents themselves just accept what people tell them,ie: I haven't got enough deposit or the mortgage is short,all these things can be negotiated and corrected if people talk,I had the best training ever from a new homes developer (they advertised from a helicopter) and I used to always put X change dates on contracts and deal with solicitors myself with clients consent and things went along much better and quicker than the norm.best of luck.

I'm having a last-minute punch up with my estate agents!!
I would appreciate any advise from former or practicing conveyancers/solicitors.
Bear in mind I'm between exchange and completion, so not about to pull out, but ...
Having agreed a price with my buyers, it came to light that some essential work on the exterior of the building (this is 1 of 6 flats in a converted Regency building) was due to be undertaken this coming Spring, at a cost of £5,000 to each leaseholder.
After much to-ing and fro-ing I agreed to a reduction in the sale price of the full £5,000.
It was a bit vague at the time as to how this would be handled, as my buyers, being first-timers, needed that £5,000 to be included in their mortgage in order to pay for the upcoming work.
Fast-forward to exchange of contracts, and a couple of days later I get the statement from my solicitor, which gives the sale price as that originally agreed, with an "allowance" to my buyers of £5,000. This basically enables the estate agent to charge me commission on the original price! (ie, £5,000 over what I am actually getting)
I have questioned this, and been told by the estate agent that there is nothing they can do about it! The original (pre-reduction of £5,000) sale price is the "official" one and they 'have' to charge me commission on that!!
I have indignantly stated that I am not going to pay commission for a "sale price" that is £5,000 over the 'real' sale price.
I think they are calling my bluff by stating that the whole contract will have to be drawn up again, and my buyers will pull out because they will not get the £5,000 extra on their mortgage!!
My argument is that estate agents fees are variable and negotiable, and therefore they ought to do the decent thing (ha ha) and bill me as a percentage of what I am actually getting, not the 'theoretical' figure that I am not getting!!
If they do not get back to me with a revised commission figure, I feel I will have no choice but to register a complaint with the property Ombudsman and fight it that way.
In a previous life, where a matter of £100 or so was neither here nor there to me, I may well have shrugged this off, but right now it is a significant amount to me. Actually - that aside, it is a matter of principle!
Any opinions gratefully received ladies. Please excuse the excess of quotations marks ... I'm attempting to make the explanation clearer

Oh my goodness NannaAnna, and I see you were up at one in the morning worrying about it. I'm not surprised. How can your buyers pull out after exchange of contracts? Glammanana are you up?

I've been thinking about the Estate Agents' commission. Our Agent was very insistant that it went on the contract as a set sum, not as a percentage of sold price, which is what I wanted to negotiate in the first place. After the initial period of the contract expired, we took the house off the market briefly, just for a break, during which time one of the viewers returned to the Agents to put in an offer. Accepting it meant signing up again with the Agent. Again, the fee was put in as a fixed sum, the same fixed sum as in the original contract and when I brought this up, the Agent said we had been given a really good deal in the first place in order to win our custom from the other Agent in the village and they couldn't come down any further. But worked out as a percentage it was pretty high in this day and age of competition and it meant we paid the same fee although we had ended up accepting £50k less for the house. You are right, NannaAnna, we accept that this sort of thing is swallowed up in the huge cost of moving, what with stamp duty and all.

NannaAnna The estate agent should charge you on the price that you acheived not the price you originally put the house on the market for,the reason being that you pay your stamp duty% on the amount acheived so why is the selling price commission not ajusted as well,the £5.000 can be paid as a cash back on completion and to do this only needs a undertaking out into the contract by your solicitor,undertakings can be added at any time prior to completion,some Agents are just not on the ball and no wonder they get a bad name.Your purchasers solicitors when they apply for the funding from the building society for your completion should apply for the full amount requested for the purchase, then when completion is due he then forwards your purchasers monies to your solicitor minus £5.000 and when you have received your monies your purchasers solicitor then places the £5.000 into the account of your purchaser = £5.000 cashback - simple.

I would defiantly in your situation take everything with me and then replace as and when I could. There is no point starting from scratch when you have it already. Have you considered using a removals service? When we moved house a few years back we used a local removals Uttoxeter company. I have moved house twice in my life - the first time by ourselves and the second with a professional house removal company and I have to say if I were to move again I would defiantly choose to use the removals company again. They packed all our items and even unloaded them into the house. Makes moving so much easier with a little help - meant we could deal with the important issues instead of worrying about how to get the table out the door and how to pack the piano.

Having just, finally, exchanged (yes, it is the same chain as last February, what a nightmare) I thought I'd update this in case the info is of use to anyone else moving home.
We contacted two local firms, one big and one big enough, and went with the latter. Costs: it seemed to me to boil down to just two things, the distance of the move, which dictated the cost of fuel and whether or not an overnight stay for the men would be needed, and the cubic capacity of what was to be moved, and hence the size of van needed.
In our case, it meant an overnighter and their largest van. They later calculated (before we had accepted their quote) that they would still need this van even if we jettisoned the bigger pieces of furniture which I was iffy about taking, so there was no point in doing so - we therefore have it all to use while we take our time finding just what we want long-term, which was our original intention.
We moved a distance of about 330 miles, did the (box and bag) packing ourselves (I use the word "ourselves" loosely of course ) as it was just as easy to wrap and pack what I decided to take as I cleared the junk - I did have FOUR MONTHS in which to do this - aaaarggggghhh. It cost with VAT a bit under £2000.
*My biggest lesson*: I will never, ever, allow clutter to build up again. In fact as soon as this lot is delivered (it is currently in storage) I will start whittling it down, and will keep doing so, as I found that the more often I went through my "keep" piles, the more I could clear. Then. if I ever move again, unless it is in my box, I will just be able to open a bottle of wine and watch the professionals get on with the whole thing. The extra cost would have been a drop in the ocean of the expense of moving house, and well worth every penny

.

Make sure you drink ALL those glasses Learnergran you deserve it! to go in your new house (if you can find where you put that vase..............!

House is now under offer - it's a real limbo, isn't it? We did all the decluttering before we "dressed" the house for sale (and it did work!)

The solicitors are now on the case, and we're off to Devon to view some properties, but I'm almost scared to tempt providence...(We always intended to rent for a while.) Ah well! Keep reassuring me, folks!

Well done Ariadne - really pleased for you and hope the sale goes through without any problems. It should be relatively easy to find a rental and will save you the headache of selling/buying in a chain which we are enduring right now! The best of luck with it all and hope you find somewhere lovely in beautiful Devon!